Flora Duffy wins Bermuda’s first ever gold medal

Wow 🇧🇲🥇

Flora Duffy won Bermuda’s first ever Olympic gold medal tonight in Tokyo, finishing the Triathlon a minute and 14 seconds ahead of GB’s Georgia Taylor-Brown in very wet conditions to send this tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean into raptures.

Bermuda had just one previous Olympic medal to its name, a boxing bronze in 1976, but Flora Duffy, already a hero amongst young athletes on the island, mastered the 500-meter open water swim, 40-kilometre bike ride and 10-kilometre run in one hour, 55 minutes and 36 seconds in sideways raining conditions to win gold making Bermuda the smallest nation by population to ever win an Olympic gold medal. An historic achievement.

Duffy, 33-years old, was born in Paget, the same Bermuda parish that I live in – that is where the familiarities end – and although she splits her time these days between training camp in Boulder, Colorado and home with her husband in Stellenbosch in South Africa, she is proudly a big chunk Bermudian, as are most ex-pats that happen to be born, but not always accepted, on this beautiful isle.

Massive congratulations to Flora, who should be a lifelong Bermuda legend, and to her parents, both huge Burnley fans, and her brother who works for my company in London.

A proud day for Bermuda and the Duffy family. Congratulations Flora.